Battle Over School Vouchers

* Re “TV Ads Escalate in Campaign Over School Vouchers,” July 26: After 12 years of teaching in the public schools I have come to the conclusion that only way to bring excellence to public education is through forcing public schools to compete for students. I am supporting vouchers this year because competition breeds excellence, which is something lacking in the government-sponsored monopoly of public education.

Year after year I see unqualified people given emergency credentials. Time after time these people flounder and quit, leaving the students to go through one substitute after another until the school year is over. Year after year I see students suffer through a class with a burned-out, ineffective teacher, who doesn’t get fired because no one will hold that person accountable. There is no accountability for the quality of teaching in the public schools, and there never will be until the schools are forced to compete for students with the private sector.

Why doesn’t the California Teachers Assn. spend $10 million on programs to help improve the schools and teacher quality instead of an anti-voucher campaign? This money could be used to create great public schools that would attract and keep students.

DAVID MOORE

Moorpark

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* Twice in the past two days, I have been telephone-solicited by a group (identity unnamed) pushing for passage of Prop. 38. Partway through the pitch, factually distorted, I asked who was sponsoring their phone calls. Answer: They say the state is paying them to make these calls.

Somewhere the people who want to own/run these alternative schools have some serious shortcomings in their own morality and integrity. And they want to teach our children?

PERRY WINEGRAD

Laguna Woods